The Pashtun inhabitants of Waziristan are divided into two principal groups: the Darwish, or Wazir, the main tribe in the north, and the Mahsud, the dominant tribe in the south. Waziristan tract was gradually brought under British political administration beginning in 1892; it was the scene of several large-scale British military operations against the tribes from the late 1800s until Pakistani independence in 1947.